Control

Control, Remedy’s paranatural action-adventure from 2019, remains a demanding showcase for real-time physics and destruction. In this analysis, we examine the pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D with the AMD Radeon RX 7600, a combination that lands at rank 2608 out of 3720 tested combos in this title. The data set covers four quality presets across three resolutions, offering a clear picture of where this mid-range GPU and high-end last-gen CPU converge and diverge.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about the limiting component in this pairing. At High settings, the measured average frame rate falls from 75 FPS at 1920x1080 to 56 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 25%. Pushing further to 3840x2160, the average sinks to 38 FPS, meaning the 4K figure is just over half of the 1080p result. This scaling pattern indicates that the Radeon RX 7600 is the primary constraint as pixel count rises, with the CPU’s 8-core/16-thread configuration having ample headroom to feed frames at lower resolutions.

The trend holds across all presets. At Low settings, the gap between 1080p and 4K is 58 FPS (118 down to 60), while at Medium it is 41 FPS (84 down to 43), and at Ultra it is 32 FPS (65 down to 33). The absolute drop is largest at Low because the GPU is less burdened by shading work, allowing the raw fill-rate and memory bandwidth limits to surface more directly. At Ultra, the 4K average of 33 FPS is only 51% of the 1080p figure, showing that even the heaviest settings do not change the fundamental resolution-bound behavior.

What this scaling says about the system is that the RX 7600’s 128-bit memory interface and 8 GB of GDDR6 are the bottlenecks at 4K, not the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. The 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth and 169.9 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply insufficient for 8.3 million pixels per frame when paired with a game that uses volumetric effects and destructible environments as heavily as Control does. The 1080p results, by contrast, show a system that can comfortably exceed 60 FPS on High and approach 120 on Low, indicating that the CPU and GPU are well matched at that resolution.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 7600 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with the Navi 33 chip, fabricated on a 6 nm process at TSMC. Its 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output pipelines are paired with 32 ray accelerators, though Control’s implementation of ray tracing is not a focus here. The GPU’s boost clock of 2655 MHz and game clock of 2250 MHz are high for the class, but the memory subsystem is the defining characteristic: 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus delivering 288.0 GB/s.

Benchmark context places this GPU at the 57th percentile among all tested graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 15171. Its nearest rival in aggregate benchmarks is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, which scores 15199, a delta of -0.2%, meaning the RX 7600 is essentially tied with that card. The AMD Radeon 680M integrated solution scores 15270, which is 0.7% higher, while the AMD Radeon Pro 560X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti trail by 0.6% and 0.7% respectively. These tight margins in synthetic benchmarks do not fully translate to Control, where the game’s specific shader workloads and memory pressure favor different hardware traits.

In Control’s measured FPS, the GPU’s 8 GB frame buffer becomes a practical concern at 4K. The Medium preset at 3840x2160 shows a minimum FPS of 36 and a maximum of 49, with an average of 43, indicating frame time variance that suggests memory allocation pressure. The High preset at the same resolution averages 38 FPS, and Ultra drops to 33 FPS. These figures are all below the 60 FPS target, and the Low preset at 4K barely reaches it with an average of exactly 60 FPS. The GPU’s G3D score of 16634 in Passmark and its DirectX 12 score of 58 in the same suite indicate moderate compute capability, but the 128-bit bus is the hard ceiling for 4K performance in this title.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D brings 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer, on the AMD Socket AM4 platform. Its base clock of 3.40 GHz boosts to 4.50 GHz, and it carries a substantial 96 MB of shared L3 cache, a feature that proves relevant in games with large, unpredictable data sets like Control’s physics-heavy scenes. The CPU is fabricated on a 7 nm process at TSMC with 8,850 million transistors on a 74 mm² die, and it supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a theoretical bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s.

The CPU’s benchmark profile is strong. In Cinebench R23, it scores 14317 multi-core and 1452 single-core. Geekbench results show 11765 multi-core and 2017 single-core. Passmark multithread score is 28309, with single-thread at 3234. The 3DMark thread scaling tests show 7299 for 16 threads and 7285 for max threads, indicating near-perfect scaling beyond 8 threads, which is expected given the 16-thread design. The CPU sits at the 80th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27896, placing it roughly on par with the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U (27887, delta 0%), Intel Core i9-10900K (27872, delta 0.1%), and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 (27932, delta -0.1%).

In Control, the CPU’s role is to maintain frame pacing and physics simulation, not to push raw pixel throughput. The measured FPS at 1080p Low, averaging 118 FPS, shows the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond the 60 FPS threshold. Even at 4K Low, the 60 FPS average suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor; the GPU’s fill rate is. The 96 MB L3 cache helps keep draw calls and streaming assets local, which is likely why the frame rate does not collapse in complex scenes, but the data does not isolate CPU-specific bottlenecks because the GPU saturates first at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data set provides 12 data points: four presets at three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 118 FPS, the highest figure in the entire set. Medium at 1080p averages 84 FPS, with a minimum of 71 and maximum of 97. High at 1080p averages 75 FPS, and Ultra averages 65 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 53 FPS, showing that the GPU has enough headroom to handle the full range of settings at this resolution, with even the heaviest preset exceeding 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the figures scale down predictably. Low averages 89 FPS, Medium averages 64 FPS (minimum 54, maximum 73), High averages 56 FPS, and Ultra averages 49 FPS. The Low preset remains comfortably above 60, Medium is right at the edge, and the higher presets fall below. The Medium preset’s minimum of 54 FPS indicates occasional dips that could be noticeable on a 60 Hz display, while the maximum of 73 suggests the system can push higher in less demanding moments.

At 3840x2160, the data shows a GPU that is clearly over its comfort zone. Low averages 60 FPS exactly, Medium averages 43 FPS (minimum 36, maximum 49), High averages 38 FPS, and Ultra averages 33 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 36 FPS is the lowest recorded minimum across all resolution and setting combinations, and even the Low preset’s average of 60 FPS is unlikely to hold steady given that the Medium preset’s minimum is far below that. The Ultra preset at 4K, at 33 FPS, is effectively unplayable for smooth action, and High at 38 FPS is marginal.

Comparing presets across resolutions, the scaling is consistent: dropping from Ultra to High yields roughly 5-10 FPS at most resolutions, while dropping from High to Medium yields 6-8 FPS, and Medium to Low yields 15-20 FPS. The largest single jump is from Medium to Low at 1080p, where the average rises from 84 to 118 FPS, a 34 FPS difference. This suggests the Low preset removes significant shading and post-processing loads that the RX 7600 struggles with, freeing up bandwidth for geometry and fill.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank in Control for this pairing is 2608 out of 3720 tested combinations, placing it in the lower third of all systems tested. This rank reflects the GPU’s limitations at higher resolutions more than the CPU’s capabilities. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a top-tier gaming CPU, but the RX 7600’s 128-bit memory bus and 8 GB frame buffer hold the system back in a game that rewards memory bandwidth and capacity.

In the context of the broader benchmark pool, the GPU’s 57th percentile ranking among all graphics cards aligns with the combo’s overall position. The CPU’s 80th percentile ranking does not lift the combo higher because the GPU becomes the bottleneck at the resolutions where Control is most demanding. The nearest GPU rivals in aggregate benchmarks, such as the GeForce RTX 3050 OEM and Radeon 680M, would likely achieve similar combo rankings in this title, given the comparable memory configurations.

The rank also reflects the game’s release date relative to the hardware. Control launched in August 2019, before the RX 7600’s May 2023 release and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s April 2022 launch. The game’s engine was not optimized for RDNA 3 architecture, and the measured FPS data suggests that driver overhead or architectural quirks may prevent the GPU from reaching its synthetic benchmark potential in this specific title. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2310 is a modern metric, while Control’s rendering pipeline is older, and the performance gap reflects that mismatch.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience on this hardware, the data points to 1920x1080 as the target resolution. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset averages 65 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The High preset at 75 FPS offers a better balance, providing headroom for frame time spikes without sacrificing significant visual quality. The Medium preset at 84 FPS is the sweet spot for competitive or fast-paced play, as it maintains a high average while the minimum of 71 FPS ensures no drops below 60.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is the only option that stays near 60 FPS, averaging 64 FPS with a minimum of 54. This means players will see occasional dips below 60, but the overall experience is playable. The Low preset at 89 FPS is the safer choice for consistent performance, though it sacrifices visual fidelity. High and Ultra presets at 1440p, averaging 56 and 49 FPS respectively, are not recommended for action sequences where dodging and telekinesis require precise timing.

At 3840x2160, the data suggests avoiding this resolution entirely. The Low preset’s average of 60 FPS is misleading, as the Medium preset’s minimum of 36 FPS indicates severe frame time spikes. The High and Ultra presets, at 38 and 33 FPS, are below playable thresholds. For 4K, the system would need a GPU with more memory bandwidth, but within this pairing, the recommendation is to stay at 1080p or 1440p with Medium or High settings.

The optimal configuration based on the measured rows is 1920x1080 with High settings, delivering 75 FPS average. This provides a 15 FPS margin above the 60 FPS baseline, enough to absorb the game’s physics-driven frame drops. For players who prioritize visual effects like particle density and volumetric lighting, the Ultra preset at 1080p (65 FPS) is acceptable, but the High preset offers a better trade-off between image quality and performance stability. At 1440p, Medium is the highest playable preset, and players should accept the occasional dip below 60 FPS or drop to Low for a locked experience.